


Vignettes

by Tasceri



Series: Extended Universe [14]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Canon compliant up to DDD, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24910552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasceri/pseuds/Tasceri
Summary: He pulls you, stumbling, into the light. (Vanitas redemption/domestication speedrun)
Relationships: Riku/Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Extended Universe [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/808422
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Vignettes

He watches the boy sleep. Curled up under the covers, hands loose fists on the pillow, protectively close to his face. His breaths are slow, a little laboured. Occasionally he shifts. The monitor by the bedside pips a soft, steady heartbeat. The monsters- several have emerged from the shadows- press protectively against his sleeping body. One tucked under his arm. Another croons as it cradles his head. At the foot of the bed an avian creature keeps watch, casting suspicious crimson eyes over the room. Their dreamlike forms twitch and waver. The scent of the Darkness is like rust, long-abandoned.

* * *

You feel the dreams slipping from your memory, flimsy ephemeral things that leave only the faintest impressions: a vast, empty blackness; the crash of waves and the prickle of heat; a silver-haired boy with stormy eyes. A feeling that somehow, the boy is _important_. 

You wake disoriented, suit missing, helmet missing, white walls close and closing in. Panic rises in your throat, bleeds from your skin and _he_ is there, touching your hands and speaking urgently, his voice a familiar, soothing cadence. A memory returns to you, the memory of a promise.

For the first time, you decide to _trust_.

* * *

Vanitas watches distrustfully from the doorway as Riku scoops rice into a bowl. Out of his suit he looks young, vulnerable: that familiar round face hollowed out by neglect, angular bones and taut muscle visible under his sallow skin. Riku slides the bowl onto the table and gestures for Vanitas to sit. 

"Go on." 

Vanitas eats with his hands, ravenously, like a half-starved animal. Riku remembers his Mom laughing at Sora's gangly frame, spooning out second helpings before Sora had even finished the first. _"Eat up or you'll waste away!"_ Riku had always laughed along. Now he just feels sick.

* * *

One of the first things you learned from Xehanort was not to beg. In the early days, when you still thought of yourself as Ventus, you showed every vulnerability: too hungry, too tired, too hot, too hurt. Of all the cardinal sins, refusal to fight merited the greatest punishment. Eventually you learned to dissociate the pain into Unversed, all-consuming agony fading to the dull throb of a numbed wound. The solution was not to alleviate pain but to _channel_ it, and in time you came to be proud of all you could endure.

Riku says: "Anything you need, just ask."

* * *

Four days later, Vanitas is gone. Riku arrives with breakfast to find his room empty and the window in shards. He traces Radiant Garden's perimeter, but finds nothing. Days pass. Sora, sympathetic, says things like: "You gave him a choice. That's all you can do." Riku keeps checking reports for mentions of red-eyed monsters anyway. Perhaps it's the promise he made to Vanitas. Perhaps it's because his haunted eyes remind Riku of his darkest moments, when he was most alone, and how different things might have been if someone had taken his hand and told him: "You are worth saving."

* * *

Beyond the beach, the ocean is an infinite mirror. Even after dusk the day's heat lingers, rising like trapped emotions finally freed. You came here so many times during those violent years, needing escape, knowing Master Xehanort would never again set foot on his homeworld's soil. Or sand. Whatever. 

You never have to see his cruel face again. No more training. No more punishments. The night sky is full of stars, each one a world you could reach in the blink of an eye. You're finally free. 

So why is that agonising emptiness still clawing at you from the inside?

* * *

Several kitchen raids take place before Riku catches him. He hears noise from the corridor: scurrying, clattering, a half-familiar voice hissing admonishments. By the time he's through the door Vanitas is already at the window, Unversed scrambling from cupboards and counters, chaos in their wake.

"Wait!" 

But he slips from Riku's hold and is gone, leaving only the tang of Darkness and body odour. 

The next time Riku is more prepared, or else Vanitas' defences are lower; he manages to bribe him with a hot meal, a bath, clean clothes. Vanitas watches him warily. Ready to disappear at any moment.

* * *

There's a delicate vulnerability to Riku when he sleeps, hair haloed around his head, his mouth parted in a pretty sliver of an _oh_. It would be so easy to destroy him. You would hold his throbbing heart in your fist and he would choke out some wordless cry and the hot splatters of blood on his face would accentuate his beauty.

You watch him pensively from your station on top of the wardrobe. _This is the night I'll kill you_ , you think. You think that every night you end up watching Riku. He sleeps soundly on, none the wiser.

* * *

Riku puts the finishing touches on the shelter as the sun starts to coast the horizon. He hauls the mattress onto the repurposed decking, a pile of donated bedding following suit. Lit up with salvaged fairy lights the shelter looks downright _cosy_.

"Come join me."

"This is stupid," says Vanitas, from the treeline. "I could destroy it in less than a minute."

Riku wipes sweat from his forehead. "I'll make you a new one. Admit it, it's better than sleeping outside." 

Vanitas scoffs. But early the next morning Riku finds him curled up in a nest of pillows, snoring softly.

* * *

Out in the fragmented boundary of Radiant Garden, it's just you and the endless ravenous Darkness. You jump between chunks of paving and crumbling fragments of buildings. They talk about having reclaimed this world from the Darkness: bullshit. Most of it is still a playground for creatures like you. Even Riku doesn't come this far out without good reason. 

Riku.

Straddling Light and Darkness like a slow twilight, and they still trust him. You kick a brick off a precipitous fall and watch it tumble into the void. Like they can't see the violence simmering in those arresting turquoise eyes. 

* * *

"He really seems to be warming up to you," says Aqua, passing Riku his water bottle. Riku glances over at the observation platform, where a dark-clad figure watches them impassively from the top row. "It reminds me of Ven sometimes," she adds, elaborating in response to Riku's confused expression: "The staring."

"I might give him a training schedule," says Riku, pulling off his sweat-stained shirt. Aqua is a hard taskmaster. 

"You're sure that's a good idea?"

Riku shrugs. "It might help keep him out of trouble." He glances at Vanitas, who has leaned forward curiously. "He could use the discipline."

* * *

You decide you like Kairi the first time you see her fight. Up against Riku, you think _he'll destroy her_ , but she hits like she's twice her weight, relentless, precise, lightbursts leaving afterimages in your vision. Riku isn't fighting to kill- shame- but he's not going easy on her either. Both of them are breathing hard. Their blades spark with each impact. 

The timer ends the fight: no clear victor. They dismiss their weapons. Riku offers advice. Kairi, grinning, returns the favour. Her laughter makes you smile.

You hop into the arena. Void Gear summoned easy as breath. 

"My turn."

* * *

"Still awake?"

Vanitas lets out a grunt of confirmation. Only his nose is visible amongst the teetering spires of bubbles. Several Red Hot Chilies bob in the water, steaming gently. 

Riku turns over a page and resumes writing, occasionally referencing the leatherbound tome at his side. Yen Sid reluctantly postponed the Mark of Mastery's written exam, on account of Sora and Riku's woefully lacking (his words) education. There's so much to catch up on; Riku has spent every spare minute studying. Including while he keeps half an eye on Vanitas so he doesn't nearly drown himself in the bath again.

* * *

Riku looks up from his book and says, "You can sleep on the bed if you want."

"I'm not tired," you lie. Riku glances at the Unversed blowing bubbles on the floor. The bedside lamp casts him in a sunset glow, soft and touchable. You keep your distance. If you felt the warmth of his skin under your palms you don't know where you'd stop. Muscle. Organs. Bone. You run your tongue along your lip, imagining the taste of him. 

You're not obsessed.

You're just… curious. Curious what he'd look like pinned under you, groaning your name in helpless surrender.

* * *

The Unversed lead Riku to Vanitas, scampering up the industrual site's copper arteries to where their progenitor surveys Radiant Garden like a king his domain.

"Sora made jerk chicken, you want some?" 

Vanitas practically inhales the plate of drumsticks. Riku lets him eat the bones: some battles aren't worth fighting. 

"I never thought I'd feel whole without him," he says casually, leaning back to watch the stars. 

"And now?"

In the gloom Riku can make out the faint luminescence of his eyes. They flick briefly to his body, back to his face.

"Hearts just want connection," he murmurs. "Even mine."

* * *

You wander, exploring the anarchic ruins in the Oceans Between and leaving footsteps in any world that takes your fancy, but you always come back. Radiant Garden's particular flavour of Darkness becomes familiar to you. You trace the unoccupied streets closest to the world's boundary, the corrupted fields and mangled industrial estates. You pick off unlucky packs of Heartless with a brutal efficiency. Your thoughts stray back to Riku like an itch, his muscular arms and reserved smile and his steady sleeping heartbeat against your cheek. The flock of Unversed follows you, their golden eyes glimmering in the misty gloom. 

* * *

"He's been sleeping in your _bed_?" Kairi exclaims, grinning from ear to ear.

"It's not like that."

"It does sound pretty like that," is Sora's judgement- no hope for an ally there, then. Riku tries furiously to stall the blush rising in his cheeks.

"He just-" but he has to admit that _"likes watching me sleep"_ doesn't help his case either. "He's still figuring things out."

"He _likes_ you," coos Kairi. 

Sora's eyes are glittering. Riku wonders if it's too much to hide his face in his hands. "He _like likes_ you, Riku."

"You're being ridiculous." 

(But maybe it's true.)

* * *

They find uses for you. Running messages and crates through the lacework of Radiant Garden's reconstructed streets. Heartless patrol on the border with whoever else can't sleep. Your personal favourite: demolition. Houses, barns, streets, pipelines; you'll rip anything beyond repair into rubble. The best part is Riku scrubbing the cement dust off you, both of you pretending not to know you don't need his help. He swaddles you in a fluffy dressing gown and blow dries your hair and his mesmerising eyes linger on you and you almost don't feel selfconscious about returning his soft smile with your crooked grin.

* * *

The storm breaks suddenly in a thundering roar, the rain reminding Riku of island summers.

"Maybe it's because he has Sora's face," he admits while they take refuge under a tree. "And… you know."

Kairi laughs behind her hand. "Riku, he looks more like a startled cat than Sora." 

"…True."

"You loved Sora for his enthusiasm and his generosity," she continues, shaking water out of her hair. "How he always sees the good in people. Even you. How much of that applies to Vanitas?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Maybe," suggests Kairi, elbowing his ribs, "You actually like him for who he is?"

* * *

You always thought that feeling emotions was the one thing you were good at. There was no anger, fear or hurt you couldn't visualise the shape of, mould into sharp angles and protective armour and claws ready to kill. In the final days it almost became a game, to retain your cool detachment while the Unversed waged war on your behalf.

Every time Riku kisses you it hits you like a train.

It's not your feelings for him that explode out of you in confused, alien forms. That was inevitable. It's the fact that incredibly, inexplicably, _he loves you too_.


End file.
